Around the Globe

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 293, 8 December 1923, Page 19

Around the Globe

__r_ill Corporation will be asked to increase the salary of their Lord Mayor from __500 to £3000 a year. "I stand before you as a man with IS children, I am sorry to say."' — Man at Mansfield Police Court. "The workhouse has been a seventh heaven to mc. especially the sulphur baths," wrote a tramp who was remanded on a charge of theft at Lincoln. _. woman told the Enfield macistrate that _be collected caterpillars and boiled them to make medicine.— "Daily Chronicle." Slug-1 _i6_ remedies for slugpish livers, no doubt. To provide work for unemployed the Ministry of Agriculture has offered to pay two-thirds of the cost of cleaning marsh dykes and tributary streams in the Eastern counties if landowners of adjacent property pay the other third. ACROBATIC COW. A cow which was being driven to Newport had an adventurous time. It entered a builder's office, mounted two flights of stairs, walked through a glass door, tried to cross tbe glass roof of a verandah, and fell ISft into a yard when the glass broke. Little the worse for its experience, the animal was secured by a rope and led away. THE END OF SUCH THINGS. A tenant who complained at Acton that Sis landlord was charging him 7/6 for one room and making a profit of over 7/ on the _o_sa_ and free accommodation, was ndvised to go to the county court, but the magistrate added: "Probably the end of it all will be that the landlord will get rid ot you." FROM COLONEL TO CORPORAL. Walter Johnson, aged 34, a lance-corporal in the East Surrey Regiment, who during the war served as a lieutenant-colonel and was awarded the D.5.0., appeared at the London Sessions recently. Ha was acquitted on a charge of improper behaviour in a music-hall. Sir Robert Wallace, the Recorder, remarking. "In my view there is nothing whatever against yon, and I trust that the very honourable record yon have borne all your life will be contioned." SEVENTH MARRIAGE AT 75. Aged 75, Mrs. Jane Rebecca Whall has married her seventh husband at Portsmouth. Her bridal coach was a corporation tramcar, and Mrs. "Becky" found hei bridegroom waiting for her outside a local theatre. From there they walked to th« registry office, where the ceremony toot place. Mr. Whall, who is a carpenter, ii 63. "I can't tolerate living alone," said th< bride. Mrs. Whall wears five of her weddin* rings on her right hand. PARENTAL CONTROL. "Rubbish!" observed Mr. Forbes Lankes ter, West London magistrate, when i woman, charging her 18-year-old daughtei with theft said she had brought tbe cas< for the girl's good, and added that nelthel she nor her husband was able to control her. Mr. Lanhester: Well, I am not a fathe or a mother, but I know people who are and I know they can control their children even daughters of 18. The girl, who sobbed bitterly in th' Aoek, was remanded. SMOKERS IN A.D. 1000. Descriptions of an ancient race who nsei tobacco at the beginning of the Christlai era, or about sixteen centuries before Si Walter Raleigh introduced it to Europe were giTen to the British Association thi week by Dr. A. C. Kruyt, a Dutchman wh has come home from the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies, for the first tim in sixteen years.

•He will return for another five-year period to complete his investigations of the people who once inhabited the island and who used tobacco by rolling the leaves into cigars.

KILLED BY MISTAKE. Mistaken for another man, Harry Lacelle, Seattle publicity and advertising man, was Shot dead at The Grove, a road house on the Bothel Highway, by Winifred Gibbans, a pretty 19-year-old divorce. Lacelle's bride _ two months was at the road home in a different room at the rime of the ■hooting. Miss Gibbons' motive for shooting Lacelle seems to be in doubt, although she declared she had mistaken him for a man named Bill Williams, whom she had known some years before, according to Prosecuting Attorney Malcolm Douglas. When shown a photo graph of Lacelle, she declared she had ■ever seen him before. Miss Gibbons is alleged to have admitted that she had had several drinks of gin daring the night. HACKING HOLE IN DECK. A thrilling rescue took place before the Hall trawler Pltstruan sank after collision with the French steamer Depute Joslin de Rohan, about 30 miles off Middlesbrough. The survivors were landed at South Shields. The cook, named Bartlett, lost his life, while the boatswain had a narrow •scape. So grant was tbe force of the impact that she trawler, heavily laden with flsh, was ent to the water's edge. Before the vessels parted the majority of the crew were able to clamber on board the steamer, taking with them the injured boatswain. The boatswain had been trapped below in the damaged vessel, and his shipmates had to hack through the deck- to release him.

Efforts failed to rescue the cook, who was also below decks, and he is believed to have gone down with the ship. TAX ON WOMEN'S GARTERS. A flurry of excitement was caused in Paris by the announcement that M. Lasteyrie, Minister of Finance, had decided to put a special tax on women's garters costing more than li francs and also a tax on that essentially feminine article the brassiere. For months the Finance Minister has been trying to find new things to tax to make up for Germany's refusal to pay reparations t and after discovering that everything from stair carpets to window plants was already being taxed he finally hit upon the happy idea of investigating feminine garments. The rush for applicants as inspectors along this line was averted, however, by the announeeiuent that the tax would De applied at the source of manufacture. Strangely enough, the day following this decision the coiffure congress announced, that tbe fashion this winter will call for tiw removal of eyebrows and eyelashes, and it is suggested that France*B policy of indirect taxation aroused the fear that M. Lasteyrie might decide to place a tax on personal characteristics as well as the personal necessities of the fair sex.

..«_ t When you ladies meet there are present j all the materials for a conflajratlon."— j Willesden magistrate. . __ ( •let ua be calm; we are ant in Parlia- t ment."—Judge Parfltt, during Bent Act I cases at Clerkenwell County Court. A wife at Tottenham __id her husband ' gave her 9/ a week, out of which she bad ' to provide him with a hat dinner every ' day and 1/ a day pocket-money. \ "Are yon IrishT" asked a solicitor of » voluble female witness at Romford. "Yes, , I am," was the quick reply, "thorough ] Irish. So now j-_ know what yon hare to i deal with." " ' — ' TO SAVE A LIFE. "It makes one proud to be an Englishman I when a whole village tolled all through the ' night. In pouring rain, trying to save a ' man s life. I pay m , tribute of admlra- . tion. ' Mr. BradweU. Notts coroner, said this in ! returning a verdict of accidental death In , the case of John Pugh. who was burled alive in a well at Blidworth. Once Pugh was almost liberated, but another fall overwhelmed him. His body was tightly wedged beneath tons of earth. BABY BURNED Uf BED. The Infant"son or Mr. Ernest Cleaver was fatally burned at Canoble Station, near Mossgiel, N.S.W. The father had occasion to go out early In the morning, leaving tlie child and his elder brother, aged 2J years, in bed. It is surmised that the elder child secured matches and accidentally set his brother's pyjamas alight. The child died in Mossgiel Hospital a few hours later. His mother was an inmate of tbe same hospital at tho time of the acldent. c HUSBAND "RE-MARRIED." A story of a husband and wife both charged with bigamy waa told at Greenwich. Florence Emily Reed (36), of Deptford, who was committed for trial on a charge of btgamonsly marrying Edward Knight, Spltalflelds, In 1917, said she left Knight in a fit of temper and returned to her lawful husband, to find that he had committed bigamy. Reed stated that he married the prisoner in 1913, went to France in 19U, and had net seen her nnttl October, 1953. BRAVO, ROVER! The remarkable sagacity of Rover, a cattle | dog belonging to Mr. SmitheTS, of Glen j Elra Avenue, Ripponlea, saved the life of ' the latter's infant son. The child wandered from home, and fln- | ally climbed the railway embankment and sat down on the line to rest. The dog, by , barking and jumping round, managed to attract the attention of the driver of an . approaching train, which pulled np when only a few yards distant from tbe child. Rover has been with the family since he was a pup, and is now tbe hero of tbe Smltbers' household. r X.C.'a CAR KILLS WOMAN. s While Sir Henry Curtis Bennett, X.C, t was returning to bis residence at Boreham, I after the conclusion of the Fahmy trial, he was involved in an accident. About r three miles from Chelmsford a motor bus, • proceeding from Chelmsford to Brent- • wood, stopped to enable a woman passenger to alight. Tbe woman stepped from behind 8 the bus in front of the motor car, and was knocked down. An ambulance, passing at the time, conveyed her to the Chelmsford Hospital, where she was found to be dead. i She was Mts. Prentice, wife of a bailiff on a the estate of Mrs. Hanbury, of Hylands r Park. s TUSKS OF A MAMMOTH. a Huge tusks which hare been found at '• gravel pits at Edmonton arc believed by c experts to belong to prehistoric mammoths that lived probably 200,000 years ago.

They are held to belong to an animal of the glacial age known as the elephas primigenins. Other finds include thlcs honeu which could have belonged to the same animal. Experts declare that the whole of the 'Lee Valley in the heart of which Edmonton is situated, is rich In remains of prehistoric ages, and further Interesting discoveries are expected. The bones and tusks were found about 40ft from the snflfacs. SKULL AS BULB BOWL. Great interest has been roused by the discovery of a large number of human skeletons of giant stature during excavation work in the main street of Trowbridge, England. One of the skulls was of such abnormal size that a workman took It home for his wife to plant bulbs in. The remains were invariably found in a perpendicular position. In some cases the skulls were discovered not more than a couple of feet from the i surface. According to historians tbis main street once formed a moat round the castle, which In far back days waa besieged, and the conjecture is, therefore, that the bones are those of warriors. GIRLS AND HASHISH. "Take a sniff of tobacco." said a young man jokingly to two Shrewsbury girls. They did, with the result that one, aged 17, was sick, and the other, sged 18, acted as though intoxicated, and a doctor was sent for. •On his arrival the doctor found the girl unable to move her legs, with an abnormal pulse, talking incoherently, and the pupils of her eyes dilated. The tobacco dust was analysed, and the results sent to the "British Medical Journal" show a percentage of hashish. I Hashish is much smoked by Indians, and has been in vogue among drug-takers 10 the West End Instead of cocaine. Dr Downer's conclusions is that tobacco when sniffed may have a more profound effect on the system than when smoked. HUSBAND'S GALLANTRY. Having rescued a woman from the water in the darkness at Cowes, a ship . fireman, named Knocker, only learned some hours later that it was his own wife Knocker was leaving Cowes by the last steamer to catch his *Wp «* Soolttampton when he heard a cry for help, and, rush n down the slipway, saw a woman in the 7 'jumped in and rescue* her, handed her over to another woman who was near, hurried off and jumped on the steamer Just as it was leaving Cowes. / He just had time to tell a steamboat official who kept the hoat back for mm that he had been delayed In helping some woman out of the water. The police made Inquiries, and at Southampton Knocker was. interrogated. He expressed complete surprise that the person he had rescued was his own wife. Mrs. , KnoekT said she had wandered down the -up-ay and In the darkness had slipped overboard. She hs* no Idea th« man who I pulled her »nt was her own hoshand.